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Comment by Ansil849 | Hacker News Reader

> This was the early 90's, and Microsoft Windows was the dominant OS. In addition, Microsoft Office was also becoming the dominant office software.

Are both of these still not the case?

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In terms of dominant OS, I think Microsoft is no longer the dominant OS, even though it is the most used OS for laptops and desktops.

Back in the 1990's, Windows was the center of the developer universe. Think how mobile developers eagerly wait to see what Apple will do. It was even more so for developers in the 1990's. There were huge Windows dev conferences. There was a ton of excitement for a new release of Windows or a new version of Visual C++/Visual Basic/Visual Studio.

Now, although there are a lot of computers that run Windows, Windows is not the center of gravity for developers. A new iOS release or a new AWS service has far more impact on developers than any new Microsoft Windows feature.

Joel has a great writeup on this from some time back:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...

Ah, I see what you mean. That was a really helpful contextualization, thank you!

I work at AWS and even I admit that a new AWS feature doesn’t have as big of an impact as a Windows feature or an Office feature.

Andy Jassy, the CEO of AWS (and soon Amazon), has said repeatedly in public statements that only 4% of all enterprise IT spend is on any cloud provider.

Office is far more ubiquitous in the enterprise than AWS. Not to mention all of the home users who have Office 365 running on their computers and mobile devices.

I don't think that's what he's saying. Of course, Joe Small Business Owner is going to care more about new features in Outlook or Excel than about new features in AWS. But I don't think _developers, specifically_ are looking out for the new office extension APIs in the same way they're looking for e.g. improvements to EKS.

but it's the moment when Visual Studio Code steps in :P

If only 4% of all enterprise spend is on any cloud provider and AWS has I believe 36% of the market, and on top of that AWS has 260 services (at least that’s the number of distinct IAM resource types), I would think there was a larger third party market for Office extensions and dark matter developers doing Office/Sharepoint automation than who cared about a new AWS feature.

There are a lot more people working at AWS dependent on MS office than MS people depending on an Amazon service…..

Arguably, the dominant OS nowadays is whatever your phone runs, plus whatever serves the websites you consume. Microsoft Office reigns unchallenged though.

Windows may be the dominant desktop OS, but Linux (via Android) has a larger install base now.

As for office software, G Suite took over the top spot from MS Office a few years ago.

GSuite is nowhere near the “top spot”. It’s nowhere close.

https://www.ciodive.com/news/g-suite-passes-2b-monthly-activ...

> Microsoft owns nearly 90% of the office suite market, or email and authoring market, as Gartner calls it. Google holds onto just over 10%, but is gaining about 1% market share annually.

Perhaps GP meant "online office suite"

Isn’t that a distinction without a difference? All of the office suites have both online and offline capabilities - even Apple’s iWork.

On the other hand, I hardly ever use the online version of GSuite, I use the iOS versions that can all work offline.

And think of all the Linux user base on servers and the fact that macOS and iOS are somewhat like Linux. Unix is huge baby!

Anyone writing portable software across UNIX will painfully discover why stuff like autoconf was born.

Linux kernel is only an implementation detail on Android.

Userspace is a mix of Java, Kotlin, ISO C and ISO C++ standard libraries, and Android specific native APIs.

Nothing from Linux side is considered public API other than for OEMs providing their own device customisations, not app developers consumption.

G Suite still has too much to learn from Office capabilities.

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